‘No, thank you. I don’t approve of gambling,’ Mum would say if someone tried to sell her a raffle ticket. But we do gamble everyday, whether we realise it or not. Setting out on my bike. Crossing the street. Making an observation to someone. Putting out the laundry when winter is beginning to bite.

Today, I gambled with the weather. Despite trying to change my washing day after I retired, I’ve fallen back onto the old routine of Saturday morning washing and rarely shift from that unless the weather’s really bad. Mum’s washing day is Monday – I think that’s traditional, when you’d heat up the copper and use huge sticks to stir the washing around before rinsing it and putting it through a mangle and heaving it onto the line, hoisted up with a clothes prop.

An Aside: Mum remembers that in my grandparents’ farm kitchen there was a clothes airer which was hauled up by a cord towards the ceiling where the washing would get the heat from the coal range. My grandmother would flick the long cord at Mum’s brothers if they misbehaved at the table. I can picture them gambling with their mother’s patience.

The Met Service app advised against doing laundry today. But it was a breezy day with the odd bit of blue sky, so I took a gamble. Out went three lots of laundry.

Finally, about 4pm, I brought the washing in. At that point there was a good breeze and the sun was shining, but it was drizzling at the same time. The towels went into the dryer to finish off, but the rest was dry enough to put on the clothes airer inside. So, I figure I broke even.